CNBC this morning had on Kim Forrest with Fort Pitt Capital Group saying Facebook is an over-priced momentum stock, with the channel running the headline “Facebook’s Teen Nightmare.” Bloomberg Television featured Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter saying, Who cares? Teens are not the target audience, it’s the 18-year-olds and up.

There was one downgrade of the stock this morning so far, by Daniel Salmon of BMO CapitalMarkets, who cut his rating to Market Perform from Outperform, writing that “Management noted that ads as a percentage of NewsFeed content should stabilize, which spooked the stock after-hours.”

“But this is not our concern,” rather “We are changing our rating primarily because of the lack of visibility around Facebook’s opportunity in Social TV advertising.”

On the other hand, there were plenty on the Street coming to the stock’s defense this morning and raising their price targets.

J.P. Morgan’s Doug Anmuth reiterates an Overweight rating and raises his price target to $62 from $53, writing that “strong 3Q results were overshadowed by the company’s comments around decreasing usage among younger teens and more stable ad load going forward.”

Meantime, Victor Anthony with Topeka Capital Markets, who yesterday initiated coverage of Twitter even before it goes public, assigning a Buy rating and a $54 price target, this morning sums up the comparison, writing “1) Twitter is clearly growing user and adverting revenues at a much faster pace, although off a lower base; 2) Facebook is monetizing at a higher rate, and 3) Twitter is in heavy investment mode.”

In contrast to Facebook, shares of Expedia (EXPE) are up $8.58, or 17%, at $58.54, after the company yesterday afternoon reported better-than-expected Q3 results. The stock is getting several price target increases this morning, and Merrill Lynch’s Justin Post raised his rating on the shares to Buy from Neutral.

The Benchmark Company’s Daniel Kurnos reiterates a Buy rating and raises his price target to $73 from $66, writing that he was not surprised by today’s rally: “We had called shares of Expedia a compelling opportunity back in August as domestic competition concerns, which we thought were overstated, and modest international underperformance against the consensus view had depressed valuation to under 7x EV/EBITDA.”

The memory chip market this morning gets some positive notes from the Street. RBC Capital Markets’s Doug Freedman writes that his “conviction is increasing” as regards Micron Technology (MU) and SanDisk (SNDK) given “commentary from memory and capital equipment manufacturers which has lead us to favorably reduce our NAND output expectations for Q4 and 2014.”

And Bernstein Research’s Mark Newman writes that “Read-through from the Q3 earnings season is very positive for the Memory industry as it proves the paradigm shift that is taking place: Memory suppliers have consolidated, are now rational about capacity, and technology slowdown means bit growth is permanently lower.”

Shares of Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) are up 45 cents, or almost 14%, at $3.75, after the company this morning beatQ3 revenue expectations, reporting €3.67 billion versus the €3.62 billion consensus. A net loss of 8 Euro cents per share was a penny worse than the consensus 7-cent loss estimate. Mark McKechnie of Evercore Partners, who has an Overweight rating on the shares, writes this morning that operating profit was “strong” — “Operating profit of €116M (up from negative €126M last year) beat our €66M forecast and the street’s €52.8M,” and the results “add confidence” to his projection of 40 cents a share in profit, “long term.”

Analysts today are digging into Apple’s (AAPL) 10-K filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, released yesterday, following the company’s earnings report on Monday. Tavis McCourt of Raymond James, who rates the stock a Strong Buy with a $650 price target, writes that Apple’s capital spending is going from $7 billion this past fiscal year to $11 billion, though it’s not clear how much will be spent on what, aside from $550 million for retail expansion.

He also notes “Apple’s warranty accruals have been steadily rising […] causing a steady headwind to gross margin expansion.”

Apple shares this morning are down $2.73, or half a percent, at $522.17.

Copyright 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our
Subscriber Agreement
and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit